


Finding Truth in Death

by mysticsushi



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen, Male Friendship, Season/Series 04, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-03 23:23:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1759535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysticsushi/pseuds/mysticsushi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor faces deep despair; Lindsey tries to talk him out of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Truth in Death

The waves were deafening. He understood why now. It wasn’t because of Holtz’ training or anything he had learned in Quor’toth. It was because he was inhuman, a freak, something that shouldn’t exist. The not-quite-vampiric blood pulsing through his veins made sure the waves crashed about his ears and pounded through his head.

But the waves couldn’t pound away the truth. They couldn’t take away the fact that he was a freak, a joke. That everything he had ever believed was a lie, that his dreams and desires were lies he himself had created, based on other lies.

Connor closed his eyes and took a deep breath, knowing the tangy salt air wouldn’t drive away the pain in his gut but having to try. He inhaled until his lungs would take no more, then held the air until his lungs ached. He exhaled until he was completely empty and forced to inhale again. It was a focusing technique, taught to him by Holtz, but it wasn’t very effective now that he knew there was no reason to be focused.

He opened his eyes and looked out at the ocean. When he had first seen it, it had been a wonder. All that water in one place, undefended, had been amazing to him. It had turned from a marvel to a prison when he had sentenced his father to its depths, but it had still been a thing of great beauty. After all that had happened since then, Connor was ready to make it his own grave. It would be an honor to die and remain in such a treasure.

It had been deliberate on his part not to go to the places connected to memories. After all, memories were just more lies designed to fool him, and he did not want to be deterred. No, Connor chose a fresh place to enter the water for the first and final time. Nothing too high, for he wasn’t jumping to his death, but nothing to low, because he didn’t want to waste time swimming. It was a place he could dive from and far enough out that he wouldn’t be washed to shore. He wanted there to be nothing left of him to be found.

Connor climbed over the guardrail, looking one last time at the vast beauty of the ocean. It was one thing – perhaps the only thing – that was true in his life, and he wanted truth to be his last memory before he embraced the one absolute truth, death.

“There are guardrails for a reason, you know.”

Connor whirled around, ready to strike down anyone who interfered with his plans. He came face to face with a man with shaggy but sleek brown hair the color of dark sand and blue eyes that were just shy of piercing. The man was about as tall as Connor, and smelled distinctly human. A little ways in the distance behind him was a rust colored pickup truck that had definitely seen better days.

“Go away,” Connor said, turning away in dismissal.

The man chuckled. “I originally had my doubts, but with all this drama you *must* be Angel’s son. This kind of angst can only be inherited.”

Every muscle in Connor’s body froze. The man knew Angel? He turned again, snarling. “Who are you? Did my father send you?”

”I figured that would get your attention.” The man walked forward and leaned against the railing, just out of Connor’s reach. “My name is Lindsey, and no, your father didn’t send me. I came on my own.”

“Why?”

Lindsey let out a self-depreciating laugh. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”

“Are you here to kill me?”

“You’re jumping to conclusions, just like your father. He always assumed I was trying to kill him. To be fair, most of the time I was. ” Lindsey shrugged. “But to answer your question, no. I’m not here to kill you. I’m here to stop you from killing yourself.”

Connor laughed humorlessly. “You’re a fool.”

“I’ve been called a lot worse, mostly by Angel. It never stopped me from going after what I wanted.”

“And you want me alive.” It was a statement, not a question. “I hate to disappoint you, but you’re too late. I’m already dead.”

One of Lindsey’s eyebrows rose. “I guess they don’t have much of an educational system in that hell dimension of yours, because according to all definitions you are very much alive.”

“Dead inside, dead outside – what does it matter? Dead is dead. All I’m going to do is make the outside match the inside.”

There was a moment of silence as Lindsey just looked at Connor, studying the young man intensely. Lindsey then sighed heavily and shifted his body so he could pull a pack of cigarettes from his jeans pocket. “You poor kid,” he said softly as he lit a cigarette.

“I’m not a kid,” Connor defended.

“You sure about that?” Lindsey paused to exhale a stream of smoke. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re throwing one hell of a temper tantrum. Adults aren’t supposed to have those, which makes you a kid.”

Connor snorted and turned away defiantly.

“Things sure haven’t been easy for you, have they? You grew up in a hell dimension, raised by a guy who only wanted to use you as a tool for his vengeance. Your father’s a vampire with a martyr/savior complex that expects you to behave just like him. You’ll never know your mother, because she staked herself. And Jasmine – well, she was the worst of it, wasn’t she?”

“Jasmine’s gone.”

Lindsey took another drag off of his cigarette. “I know, by your own hand. I can only imagine how it must have hurt, for everyone else to feel all this love just by knowing her, while you felt nothing. After everything you did for Cordy and for Jasmine, after all the love you gave to them, you ended up with nothing in return.”

“So you understand,” Connor said, sniffing back the tears. “I am dead inside.”

“No, kid, you’re not. What happened had nothing to do with you and your ability to feel. It was your blood.”

Somewhat confused, Connor turned is head toward Lindsey. “The blood given to me by my parents. Undead blood.”

Sighing, Lindsey took one last drag from his cigarette and cast it into the ocean. “Will you stop it with the dead stuff and listen to me? It was the blood you gave to Jasmine, you and Cordelia. It made you . . . immune. Jasmine couldn’t give you peace because she couldn’t give it to herself; that peace didn’t exist.”

“I don’t understand – how do know any of this?”

Lindsey shrugged. “I have friends in all the right places.”

Connor’s brows knit together as he tried to figure out what Lindsey was telling him. After a moment, he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing’s the way it should be, and it can’t be fixed now. You can’t fix what’s based on lies.”

“You inherited *way* too much from Angel’s end of the gene pool.” Lindsey reached out a grabbed Connor’s arm, hauling him over the guardrail and dumping him on the ground. “Of course nothing’s the way it should be. Do you think good and evil would be fighting if it was?” He placed a booted foot on Connor’s chest to keep him down. “I’ll tell you a secret, kid – nobody knows how the world’s supposed to be. Not Jasmine, not Angel, not me, and certainly not you. All anybody knows is how they want the world to be.”

Lindsey removed his foot from Connor’s chest and took a step back. Connor immediately sprang back up, his body forming itself into a fighting stance.

“Life is hard, and full of pain,” Lindsey continued. “For everybody. You’ve had it bad, but so have countless others. But just because you’re suffering doesn’t mean you give up. You fight and you try to make things better.”

He stopped speaking and blinked, as if he couldn’t believe he had just uttered those words. “I have got to get out of this city,” Lindsey muttered under his breath.

“You’re just like them,” Connor said. “You don’t understand, either. You just want me to fall in line and make fighting my reason for living. Well, I’m not like them, and I’m not like you.”

Lindsey sighed and shook his head. “I never said you were. Look, you want to jump? Go right ahead. I’ve said and done all I can to try to change your mind.” He took a few steps away, then turned back. “You’ve never really had an opportunity to live in this world, to see what’s beyond all this. Don’t you owe yourself that much?” His mouth quirked in a quick half-smile. “Maybe you should think about that.”

Connor watched the other man walk away for a handful of moments before he turned away. He walked to the guardrail and found he needed to gather up courage before he could put a foot over it. Annoyed with himself, he swung the other leg over and resolutely faced the ocean. There was nothing to think about, he told himself. There was only one absolute truth, and that was death. Except . . .

What if Lindsey was right? What if it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t feel the love Jasmine had been spreading? What if there was more outside of the city, outside of the life he knew? What if he could find the rest he desperately craved without succumbing to death?

Growling, he turned away from the ocean and grasped the guardrail, unknowingly crunching the metal beneath his fingers. He couldn’t believe a stranger had made him question his course of action. Death was the only way to make the lies stop. Wasn’t it?

He looked up and out into the distance. With his enhanced sight he could make out the figure of a man nearing the shape of a pickup truck. Before he could question himself again, Connor jumped over the guardrail and took off toward the figure. When he reached Lindsey, he was just about to unlock his truck.

“Are you sure?” he asked. The older man jumped slightly, then turned to glare at Connor.

“About what? You giving me a heart attack?”

Impatiently, Connor shook his head. “That there’s more out there.”

“I’m sure,” Lindsey replied. “I came from out there, so I’m positive it exists.”

“And that it wasn’t my fault? That I couldn’t feel what everyone else felt?”

Lindsey smiled, a soft, kind smile he didn’t know he was capable of. “I have it on very good authority that it wasn’t your fault.”

Connor closed his eyes and took a deep breath, once again using the focusing technique to calm the thoughts rampaging through his head. He found that it helped now, and that he had something to focus on. Where there was once only pain blossomed hope, and he clung to those fragile tendrils as tightly as he could.

“Are you leaving here and going back out there?” he asked.

“It just so happens I am.” Lindsey paused, and the smile on his lips became slightly mocking, though it was directed inwardly. “Want to come keep me company?”

Connor nodded and walked around to the other side of the truck. He climbed into the passenger seat, closed the door, and fastened his seat belt, then looked up at Lindsey, who was in the process of fastening his own seat belt.

“How did you know to come? And why? I don’t mean anything to you.”

Lindsey closed his eyes and dropped his head for a moment before turning to look at Connor. “A past love asked me to do her a favor. That’s all you need to know.”

With that, Lindsey turned on the car, put it in drive, and headed out of Los Angeles.


End file.
